Polls ahead of Tuesday's U.S. midterm election show the economy remains a common priority for voters backing both parties, while issue rankings split by party and two national surveys put Democratic congressional candidates ahead among likely voters.
In a Pew Research Center survey of 5,062 U.S. adults conducted Sept. 28-Oct. 4, 84% of registered voters rated economic conditions highly important to their choice. The figure was 88% among registered voters backing Democratic candidates and 82% among those backing Republican candidates. Pew reported a 1.6-percentage-point sampling margin for the full sample.
On other issues, 85% of Democratic-candidate supporters said democracy's future mattered greatly to their vote, compared with 69% of Republican-candidate supporters. Health care drew 82% and 53%, respectively. Republican-candidate supporters put more weight on immigration, at 72% versus 53%, and violent crime, at 64% versus 37%.
Pew put intense concern over food and consumer prices at 82% for Democrats and Democratic leaners and 62% for Republicans and Republican leaners. For health care costs, the figures were 80% and 57%; for gasoline and energy prices, 81% and 65%.
Views of President Donald Trump's economic policies also differed. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 91% said his policies had worsened economic conditions. Among Republicans and Republican leaners, 39% said they had improved conditions, 35% said they had made them worse and 25% reported little effect. Compared with 2022, the economy's importance rose from 65% to 88% among Democratic-candidate supporters and fell from 92% to 82% among Republican-candidate supporters. Democratic supporters' rating of immigration as very important rose 17 percentage points over that period.
KFF's Health Tracking Poll, conducted Sept. 16-21 among 1,328 U.S. adults, found registered voters trusted Democrats more than Republicans to address health care costs, 42% to 22%, and the cost of living, 39% to 25%. In the registered-voter sample, 63% of Democratic voters and 38% of Republican voters said they were more motivated than usual to vote.
In Marist's Oct. 19-20 survey for NPR and PBS News, likely voters favored Democratic congressional candidates 52% to 44%; the margin of error for likely voters was 3.8 points. An Ipsos analysis of the Reuters/Ipsos Core Political survey, conducted Oct. 22-26, found 53% of likely voters would choose or lean toward the Democratic candidate, versus 44% for the Republican. The Ipsos survey included 1,679 adults and had a 2.4-point sampling margin for the full sample; subgroup margins were higher and varied.
The polls were conducted at different times and used different likely-voter criteria, so their national readings do not establish the outcome in individual races. Voters are scheduled to cast ballots Tuesday, Nov. 3.
